The invention pertains to a gear shift fork for the axial shifting of a clutch sleeve, which possesses two fork arm sections lying opposite to each other and which are connected via a section forming a forked interlock device section.
As state of the art technology, a whole variety of embodiments of gear shift forks are known and available on the market, the main use of which gear shift forks is in gear boxes, often in vehicles, to perform axial movements of clutch sleeves or the like.
Gear shift forks of this kind are usually manufactured from thin sheet metal elements, sheet metal strips, band elements or links.
One example of such a gear shift fork has been made known in patent document DE 101 58 729 A1, where it is provided to perform an axial shifting of a clutch sleeve rotating around an axis in a gear box, to which end the gear shift fork possesses two fork arm sections lying opposite to each other and which are connected via a section of a forked interlock device, in which instance the section of the forked interlock device connects the gear shift fork with a switching rod. The gear shift fork is essentially formed from a flat sheet of thin metal. To economize in terms of weight, recent designs of such gear shift forks now include openings in feasible areas of the gear shift fork, in particular in the fork arm sections. This post production reworking of the gear shift fork not only raises its costs, since corresponding devices and staff have to be provided for the punching of the pertaining openings, but it isn't very environmentally sound either. After all, the manufacturing of these gear shift forks produces waste in the form of punched material and also, a corresponding input of energy to perform the punching of the openings has to be provided.
The object of the invention is to provide a gear shift fork, which has especially little weight and nevertheless can be manufactured in a cost effective and environmentally sound manner.